Reservella: The shadowy company behind The Pirate Bay

Dutch copyright holders this week filed documents in court alleging that The …

When lawyer Ernst-Jan Louwers showed up in a Dutch court this week to defend the three Pirate Bay administrators, he swore that none of the three men in fact owned the site, having got rid of it in a shady 2006 transaction. How shady? Louwers told the judge that he could produce literally no piece of evidence that the site had even been sold at all—no contract, no bank transfer, no nothing.

The Pirate Bay admins have long said that the site is actually controlled by a mysterious company called Reservella, based in the Seychelles islands. As for who controls Reservella, the admins say they have no idea—and frankly don't care.

But Dutch antipiracy group BREIN says that it knows who controls Reservella, and it has the document to prove it: Fredrik Neij, one of the three Pirate Bay admins.

Check the credit report

The revelation was made during a Dutch trial this week seeking to block access to The Pirate Bay from within the Netherlands. BREIN submitted as evidence a credit report from Experian (PDF), one of the major credit rating agencies, which listed Neij as the CEO of Reservella. The document added, "Although the Subject Business is legally registered, it is registered in a tax haven country by overseas owners, and has no operational office, nor employees." The "maximum recommended credit" that should be extended to the company was, not surprisingly, "None."

Peter Sunde

Pirate Bay admin and spokesperson Peter Sunde quickly took to his blog, claiming that Neij had nothing to do with Reservella's owners. Furthermore, he suspected a forgery.

"It is very clear to me what has happened," he wrote. "My well educated, well established, well founded hunch is that BREIN realized that they were going to lose hard and in order to win, they themselves had to create false evidence and hand that over to the court!"

As if that wasn't enough, Sunde said that "I am right now filing criminal charges against both [BREIN boss] Tim Kuik personally as well as BREIN to the Dutch police. I consider what they have done as criminal. Much more severe than any 'aiding with potential copyright infringement' could ever be. The charges will be forgery (the document is stated to come from a third party and used as evidence in a court of law) and fraud (by gaining from this, both monetarily as well as politically)."

So what's going on here? We contacted Kuik, who sounds like a man who has had it with The Pirate Bay's antics. "If Sunde will in fact file a criminal complaint, he will in fact wilfully make a false complaint," he told Ars. "Although I find it not unusual for Mr. Sunde to make false statements and allegations, this would be another and even more reproachable low after his previous misguided criminal complaint against me which also led to nothing." (Sunde also went after Kuik a few weeks back over a separate legal issue.)

In any event, BREIN says it had nothing to do with the report, which came from Experian, and that it was only using the document in an attempt to have the judge join the (separate) trials against The Pirate Bay admins and against Reservella. The judge refused, and Kuik says that the report "therefore does not play a role in the court case."

De facto control

But even if BREIN can't trace the paper trail, it says that Sunde, Neij, and Gottfrid Warg are "taking actual responsibility for the site" regardless of its owner. They therefore should bear responsibility and are the "de facto" site operators. And Kuik noted that the court case this week did result in the admission from Louwers that "Neij and Warg had been owners of The Pirate Bay and contended they had transferred the ownership 'some time in 2006.' He could not say to whom and could not submit any transaction document."

The Pirate Bay has actually said this for some time. Sunde has previously told Ars that the site was offloaded back in 2006, but not to Reservella. Instead, ownership was transferred to an entity that he refuses to name, which then sold it to Reservella. We contacted Sunde to ask whether there was not some document or money trail proving any of this, something that would simply put an end to the continued claims that the Pirate Bay admins are playing an ownership shell game of some kind.

Sunde tells Ars that there is no such document or money trail because, in 2006, the site was "given away for free." Who was it given to? "This is being kept confidential because the other party would otherwise try to sue more people, of course." But it's Sunde's understanding that no documents were signed at the time.

Suspicion has long centered on Neij because his name shows up on The Pirate Bay's WHOIS information as the contact (Reservella is listed as the owner). The new document from Experian seems to confirm that Neij was in fact linked with Reservella—so we asked him for an explanation.

Neij tells Ars that he is "listed as a contact for the domain, where they have chosen to add their company name as well. I can only assume it has something to do with the upcoming sale. As with most customers that have my name as proxy, I can not edit the WHOIS information, because they still have the domains in their registrar accounts for which I don't have access. They are allowed to use my name in the whois as long as they are costumers of [Neij's business] DCP Networks."

So Neij's name was simply plugged into the WHOIS information by the person who currently controls the domain; this also seems to be a possible explanation for the credit report information as well. Whoever Reservella is, he or she wants to remain well hidden.

Ars has received anonymous information on the company, pegging it to a specific individual who lives in the Seychelles (itself an interesting claim, since the Seychelles is a hub for offshore companies and foreign ownership was assumed to be more likely). The name "Reservella" is alleged to come from a Seychelles luxury hotel called "La Reserve." Ars has been unable to confirm either piece of information, though this same source was correct that the company had been registered by the Mayfair Trust Group Limited in the Seychelles city of Victoria.

Mayfair Trust refused to provide any contact information for Reservella, but did confirm that it forwarded the e-mail to "our client and they will respond directly to your query." No one from Reservella replied, and no one from the site showed up in the Dutch court this week.

Sunde told us a few weeks ago, "One thing you need to know when it comes to Reservella is that _it's not us_. We separated the TPB ownership long time ago to protect ourselves and the site. That means that it's deliberately out of our hands on how that part is handled. We signed the NDAs in order to be able to take part in some of the discussions with [Global Gaming Factory], such as demanding for instance that the user data is safe, it can't be handed over etc etc. That was part of the deal when TPB was handed over—an eventual sale in the future had to be on terms that the crew could be OK with."

Although the content industries continue to charge that the admins have been stashing huge wads of cash in secret bank accounts, Sunde is adamant that the only benefit he accrues from working on the site is "helping out a political cause… Since the money [from a sale] will in the end be transferred to a fund, no one will benefit from this economically. It's building muscles for a cause."

But, while the ownership mystery continues, BREIN hopes to proceed against the site administrators and will leave the question of Reservella's ownership for another day. To Kuik, it's just not enough to sign some mysterious papers, say that you no longer own the site, and then continue to operate as you have always done; if you want to avoid liability, stop doing the activity in question.

Originally posted by Galeran:Wouldn't it be trivial for someone to spend a few $ on Experian's site and attempt to come up with the same report? Or for the judge to just ask Experian to verify it?

I was thinking the same thing. It would solve the mystery in some ways, but in others the mystery would still exist because then there would be the thing of Reservella just having stuck the name on there to fill a blank spot which no one might be able to prove or disprove.

Originally posted by moritz-s:Meanwhile the German pirate party has gotten roundabout 700k Euro (1 million USD) as public funding because they got a respectable 2% at the recent national elections.

It is actually 750k € for the elections ans 0,38€ per every € they make from membership fees. That is the maximum. What they will get from the state is equal to what they make from other sources so the guess is at about 400k€.

And if TPB is owned by another organization, then there must, at least occasionally, need to be communications between them. Why can't the TPB admins simply be compelled to name the person(s) they communicate with?

QUOTE : " Although the content industries continue to charge that the admins have been stashing huge wads of cash in secret bank accounts, Sunde is adamant that the only benefit he accrues from working on the site is "helping out a political cause… Since the money [from a sale] will in the end be transferred to a fund, no one will benefit from this economically. It's building muscles for a cause. " --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Isn't it funny that the entire content industry, BREIN, RIAA, MPAA and all the 'celebrity' lawyers have been claiming the millions TPB has been earning and the Brokep and friends have been enjoying for years BUT NO-ONE is yet to provide a solid evidence or bank statements proving the same ...

Those familiar with the site would be aware of the so called Ads which BTW is very common in most of the sites I visit nowadays. Taking into account that TPB would earn something provided the visitor clicks on these ads - I would assume that half of the internet sites are very lucrative nowadays and owners are rich..LOL

Going by the sheer number of traffic that TPB has, its ancillary services like blog, forum ( which btw does not contain ads ), I would assume that there is a huge cost attached to its maintenance ...and the new servers which are purchased to cope up with the traffic !!!

Hence wondering how come these guys are enjoying millions as alleged ?

Originally posted by Tweeker:"Reservella, is nothing more than a front for The Pirate Bay administrators"

How is that different from every single other corporation on the planet?

Or more specifically the corporations who fund the RIAA and MPAA.Its fantastic how TPB boys took a chapter of the MAFIAAs handbook and taught them a lesson from it.

"To Kuik, it's just not enough to sign some mysterious papers, say that you no longer own the site, and then continue to operate as you have always done; if you want to avoid liability, stop doing the activity in question."

Well, Kuik can suck some kuk (Swedish for c*ck) because few care whats enough for him or not...as for "the activity in question", would that be _not_ hosting any copyrighted files but merely hash files that may or may not point to something thats copyrighted??

Plus, considering how much erroneous data exist on many credit reports (many articles have stated that at least a majority of US citizens have some errors on at least one report) it is kind of hilarious to attmept to rely on them in any legal forum.

Mine says that I once lived in aonther city that I have never lived in. I have written several times and the 2 agencies that have the error (coincidentally Experian is one of them) just never take it off. Heck, for all we know, Experian did a Whois lookup and made the assumption from the same data posted above.

Originally posted by Lee L:Mine says that I once lived in aonther city that I have never lived in. I have written several times and the 2 agencies that have the error (coincidentally Experian is one of them) just never take it off. Heck, for all we know, Experian did a Whois lookup and made the assumption from the same data posted above.

They are required by law to verify and respond to the information within 30 days. If you send them a certified notification to remove the false information and they can't verify it, but refuse to remove it, you can sue them.

This all reminds me of a witch hunt. The copyright mafia couldn't have found better allies than these Dutch courts/prosecutors.

They aren't really doing anything wrong? Let's just make up some bullshit, I dunno, let's call it "making available". Oh, the ownership of the site was transferred years ago? Bah, technicalities -- let's just say for the sake of the law that whomever we've actually seen is the owner. Don't have the evidence we need? No problem -- let's just manufacture it.

It just goes to show you that nothing really changes. The people with the money always find a way to suppress those without. The law is the law. Unless money is involved, in which case, the law is whatever you pay it to be.

the only thing i find frustrating is that they claim to have passed it on but have no documentation and therefore (if they were in the UK which they are not I know) legally it would be hard to prove they have no liability (at least based on my understanding of UK law)as they can not show any contract was made especially as they have continued to run the site on behalf of the new "owners"

Still hate BREIN though, although i find it unlikely that they would forge documentation that they would then present to court as surely the other side would just sub peona experians credit database and it would then invalidate the evidence.

Just seems more cat and mouse and mirrors to try and get around the whole who does/does nto own TPB.

It wouldn't surprise me if the whole Reservella thing is just a front for TPB admins. Even if it were not, it seems of little consequence. The admins would still be responsible for their actions, since they were/are still running the site.

TPB is playing with fire. Sooner or later, the admins are going to have to pay, and the site will be taken down. Of course, that won't stop any number of other sites from taking its place.

I just read the blog and wow. Assuming that he is not making up all that shit it looks like something very underhanded is going on. It would be very amusing to catch whatever flavor of big content they have over on that side of the pond in the middle of some very dirty lies, but I have a hard time believing that would risk that mess.

What I think most people don't realize, is that by Neij and his buds not owning the company (that they are just employees running the website for Reservella) only the owners of Reservella are the ones culpable for the crime of copyright infringement.

Copyright violation is not a felony charge, so the prosecutors can't even get them on being accomplices. They have to try and prove they own the company that owns the website.

Let's get the conspiracy theories started: the reason that Reservella doesn't want the identities of their owners revealed is because they have a huge amount to lose, politically and financially. Because they're actually a group of Film and/or Music industry executives who were secretly funding TPB, allowing them to personally directly profit from piracy in addition to the usual channels. :P

Originally posted by Staticstarter:I love this battle. It needs to be a movie- or a video game.

then every can d/l off the pirate bay!

What I think most people don't realize, is that by Neij and his buds not owning the company (that they are just employees running the website for Reservella) only the owners of Reservella are the ones culpable for the crime of copyright infringement.

Copyright violation is not a felony charge, so the prosecutors can't even get them on being accomplices. They have to try and prove they own the company that owns the website.

at the end of the day, maybe in a year maybe 10, the laws are going to be re-written to deal with this. it is just the run-around and is kinda bogus

Sooner or later, the admins are going to have to pay, and the site will be taken down. Of course, that won't stop any number of other sites from taking its place.

I have to wonder if they can even take the site down at this point. It's just a bit of code and a database of .torrent files running on commodity hardware. How can you make that unavailable any better than you can make the latest single unavailable? At best you can take away the domain name, but that is hardly very useful if it's back up and running as 'thepiratecove.org' the next day and a week later someone writes a Firefox addon that resolves the site to an IP without using DNS.

This is the problem with fighting P2P. It's incompatible with the Internet as a platform for individuals to communicate with one another. If you can send somebody an IM then you can send them an MP3 and you can send them a copy of the pirate bay's code. So what do you want to do? Ban people from communicating over the Internet? Prohibit privacy? It isn't that copyright is evil or wrong or even outdated, it's that the cost of effective enforcement is to cripple the greatest force for human good since the printing press.

People keep saying things like "the laws are going to be re-written to deal with this" as if John Law is going to come get the one bandito responsible for all of this and then it will be over and Hollywood will have won. You can't arrest a whole generation. You might theoretically be able to break the Internet in such a way that it turns into Television and in order to publish anything you first have to send it to the corporate gatekeeper who verifies that you're allowed to publish it, but can you really say that it's worth that cost?